For gays in Moscow, the ugly – and violent – face of Russian bigotry

They were warned – and as far as Russia‘s intolerant, hate-filled neo-Nazis, far-right skinheads and militant-Christian fanatics were concerned, they got what was coming to them.

Yesterday in Moscow, several dozen homosexual activists who were protesting a ban on a proposed gay-rights parade they would like to organize in the Russian capital “were kicked and punched by anti-gay demonstrators.” The marchers, who had set out on their way to the office of Moscow’s mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, to deliver a petition calling for the ban to be lifted, were met “by police and anti-gay demonstrators who punched and kicked the activists and pelted some with eggs.” Homosexuality was illegal in Russia until 1993. Nevertheless, Luzhkov “has said he would never permit a gay-rights march in the city and has denounced homosexuality as ‘satanic.'” (AHN)

Yesterday, in Moscow, a plain-clothes police officer detained a man as gay activists tried to deliver a petition to the mayor’s office

A day before yesterday’s march, some 200 Russian nationalists, communists and religious militants had gathered in central Moscow for their own “March for Russia” rally, where they waved flags with communist symbols and carried religious icons. Neo-Nazis gathered in a separate location to publicly protest the idea of any kind of gay-rights parade ever taking place in the city. A spokesman for the capital’s police force said: “We will suppress any attempt at provocation with all legal means.” (Der Kurier, Austria) A protester in the shaved-heads-and-tattoos crowd at the second rally told a Reuters cameraman: “We’re here to show we’re strong and prepared to fight for our rights.” As he spoke, his “colleagues shouted ‘Glory to Russia!’ and made salutes.” (Reuters in the Scotsman)

Prior to yesterday’s march, Russian gay-rights activist Nikolai Alexeyev, who is leading the effort to organize a Moscow parade, described the petition that had been prepared for Luzhkov, which numerous foreign politicians had signed. Alexeyev told reporters: “It’s a collective address, and people have the right to be present when it’s handed over to the authorities.” (Reuters in the Scotsman)

Russian activist Nikolai Alexeyev (left) has led the effort to organize a gay-rights parade in the Russian capital

As it turned out, police detained Alexeyev and several other participants in yesterday’s attempted march to the mayor’s office. Among the apprehended: Peter Tatchell, a well-known, British gay-rights activist; Volker Beck, a Green Party member of Germany’s parliament and gay-rights activist; and Marco Cappato, a member, from Italy, of the European Parliament.

Agence France Presse reports that “[b]oth Tatchell and Beck were punched in the face in full view of police and dozens of journalists. Another activist was seen bleeding from his face after being attacked.” The news service notes: “Intolerance of homosexuals is stronger and more widespread in Russia than in Western Europe, forcing gays to keep a low profile.” AFP points out that Igor Miroshnichenko, a senior official of a Russian Orthodox Church organization, told Russia’s Interfax news agency “that gays were ‘perverts who violate the will of God.'” Miroshnichenko also stated: “We want to attract the attention of society so that no one even talks about a gay parade.” He said supporters of the proposed event “want to destabilize Russia.” (AFP in TurkishPress.com)

Richard Fairbrass, a gay member of the British pop-music group Right Said Fred who took part in yesterday’s march, “was punched in the face and kicked by anti-gay activists” while speaking to a reporter. Reuters notes: “Blood dripped from his face after the attack.” Beck, the German politician, “was hit in the face with eggs before being detained by riot police.” As he was being led away, he said: “We didn’t do anything.” (Reuters in the Globe and Mail, Canada)

Yulia Volkova, of the Russian pop group Tatu, spoke at a press conference on Saturday in support of the proposed gay-rights parade

The detained activists were later released.

Claudia Roth, the head of Germany’s Green Party, “called on German Chancellor Angela Merkel to raise the issue of [human] rights with [Russian] President Vladimir Putin” at next month’s G8 summit, which will take place at the Baltic resort of Heiligendamm. Roth issued a statement that said: “It has been shown once again today that human rights are systematically abused in Putin’s Russia.” (Reuters in the Globe and Mail; also Deutscher Depeschendienst in Die Zeit)

A representative of Human Rights Watch, the international, human-rights advocacy organization, who observed yesterday’s events in Moscow, said: “It is very conspicuous when people are arrested in front of the mayor’s office when they were doing nothing other than trying to present a peaceful petition.”

Yulia Volkova is a member of the Russian pop duo Tatu, which became famous thanks in part to its teen-lesbian image. On Saturday, looking ahead to what she hoped would be the successful presentation of the lift-the-ban petition to the mayor’s office and to a day when a gay-rights parade would be allowed to take place, Volkova said of the proposed event: “I don’t consider this to be a demonstration, but [rather] a festival where everyone of us can unite regardless of orientation….Our city should be fashionable.” (Reuters in the Scotsman)